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If you are staring at the financial markets in disbelief and wondering what on earth is going on, here’s some cold comfort: you were not alone. Plenty of traders and fund managers are in utter confusion too.

As it became clear in the early hours of Wednesday morning that Donald Trump would soon be taking up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the futures markets were predicting the Dow Jones Industrial Average would shed at least 800 points when the markets opened in the US. And yet it ended the day in positive territory.

The financial markets didn’t just take the Trump election in its stride; with the S&P 500 poised for its best week in nearly two years, they appear to be positively cheering...